THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, THE (1999)

(August 1999, U.S.)

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR was one of those rare instances in which I didn't know it was a remake at the time of its release. After seeing John McTiernan's film version in 1999, I immediately rented the original 1968 version with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. I only watched it once, but from what little I remember of it at this time, I found myself rather bored. That was nearly twenty years ago, so maybe it's time for a fresh perspective...maybe.

As in any heist movie, you look for and hope to hell you'll get something fresh and original that hasn't been done before. The heist that opens the film, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, is about as traditional and cliché as anything you've ever seen before, I suppose, though one can argue the idea of the Trojan horse used to enable the thieves to infiltrate the museum is a pretty original idea. Their attempted (and failed) theft is only a diversion, however, so the real theft of the priceless painting of San Giorgio at Dusk by Monet...

...can be masterminded by Thomas Crown (played by Pierce Brosnan), a billionaire businessman and playboy with a high class taste that includes stolen art which he never tries to sell, but keeps for his own enjoyment. For a man like him, it's the sheer thrill of the job that drives him. For Catherine Banning (played by Rene Russo), an insurance investigator, it's the thrill of catching her prey. I suppose the real twist of this film lies in that hunter and hunted and being drawn closer and closer to each other's "scent", so to say. The heat rises between them, not just in their ongoing cat-and-mouse relationship, but also in the thrills they both share that are often motivated by money. Crown's the sort of man who will crash his expensive boat simply because he years for the thrill of such a crash against the waves. But even while he still remains under Catherine's suspicions, he donates a Picasso painting to fill the void that's been left by the stolen Monet. This is a simple set up that will pay off beautifully later on in the film.

Tensions rise and so does the passion between Crown and his new lover. In fact, it's this film that reminds me why I always thought Rene Russo was one of the hottest middle-aged women I'd ever seen on screen (at least I did twenty or so years ago. Today, not so much). Accompanying Crown on a trip to his house in Martinique, Catherine realizes he's preparing to flee and rejects his offer to join him when the time comes, despite her falling deeper and deeper for him. In an effort to try and hold onto her, he offers her his trust by confiding that he plans to return the stolen Monet back to the museum. And yet, he clearly knows he'll be betrayed by her because he already has another masterminded plan in motion involving multiple lookalikes wearing bowler hats (designed to resemble the same figure in The Son of Man by LaMagritte) when he returns to the museum and it's filled to the brim with police and surveillance. This is where it's the viewer's job to remember the Picasso that Crown donated earlier in the film because the pay off is now - just keep your eye on the water, and don't forgot about it, even when you're watching Crown and Catherine passionately reunited in the end.

I suppose there's little I can say about THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR that you haven't heard me say before with other heist films, other than the fact that I consider this one of the rare cases when I consider the remake to be superior to the original. Brosnan and Russo share good chemistry and better heat together in a film that's (happily) rated R to satisfy my desire to see Russo naked. I must confess, I also find an extra thrill in the heist sequences themselves when they're accompanied by the hard pulse piano keys of Nina Simone's "Sinnerman", which I've only previously heard in David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE. In the world of cinematic crime when we're very often meant to sympathize with the criminal, the thrill of the theft and the chase involving priceless art that's often meant only to cater to the super rich, seems like a more or less harmless vice in the eye of the criminal who commits it. As Dennis Leary so blatantly puts it to Catherine when it appears that Crown has gotten away, "I don't give a shit."

Favorite line or dialogue:

Thomas Crown (concluding his business deal): "Have you figured out what you're going to say to your board when they realize you paid me thirty million more than others were offering?"